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From 'TBH Politoons'
Great Site!
Thanks, again, Tim!
Baron Dave Romm's Review
Alan Lomax
By Baron Dave Romm
Without Alan Lomax, the world would be a poorer place. Quieter. Less tuneful. He never wrote a song and didn't perform them, but because of him we have Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Burl Ives, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, Jelly Roll Morton and many others. They were making music before they met Lomax, but he first recorded some of them and gave others their big break and gave still others the connections to their big break. Wimoweh (The Lion Sleeps Tonight), Goodnight Irene, So Long It's Been Good To Know Ya', On Top Of Old Smokey... Would you have heard any of these songs without the efforts of Alan Lomax? Hard to say, but fortunately we don't have to.
He started working with his father, John Lomax, in the early 30s recording music for the Libray of Congress. He died on July 19, 2002 at the age of 87. In between, he hosted radio and tv shows, produced records and went into the rural areas of dozens of countries to tape musicians on their home territory. Most famous in the US for his recordings in this country, his travels took him to Haiti, the Bahamas, England, Spain and the Hindu community in Trinidad. He was a passionate believer in Cultural Equity, and interactive digital media. The Association for Cultural Equity (ACE) was chartered in New York in 1985 to "dissiminate folk traditions from around the world". In other words, to hear music from all over.
The Alan Lomax Collection on Rounder Records is a 150 CD collection of folk music and narrative drawn from his lifetime of recording. Fortunately, you don't have to get all of them all at once. Rounder has reissues of disks broken down into CDs and sets. Perhaps a good start is a collection from his radio show in 1944. Memphisguide has a few of his recordings in Real Audio if you just want to sample. The Oh Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack has a couple of his recordings. Wired gets into the act with a short 1998 article entitled Alan Lomax Maps Our Musical Genome, which mentions the Global Jukebox, a project to pull together 4,000 songs and 1,000 dances at ACE's location in Hunter College in NYC.
It is difficult to overestimate the influence Alan Lomax had on Western music. While it's speculation to say who would or wouldn't have produced a piece of music, people who either directly credit Lomax's efforts or cite the people he introduced to the world as influences range from Pete Seeger to the Beatles to the Rolling Stones to Bob Dylan to Brian Eno to Moby (see last paragraph) and so on into today's Worldbeat, Rap and Hip-Hop . They Might Be Giant's song The Guitar has a chorus that derives from The Lion Sleeps Tonight. Rappers sample his recordings; movies use them. The music he spent more than 50 years recording and presenting to the world is alive today.
Thank you, Alan Lomax.
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia with a radio show, a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. He reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E here.
2 (More) Great Reasons To Visit Vegas (And Stay At The Rio!)
Penn & Teller
Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino - Entertainment - Penn and Teller
SinCity - The Web Home of Penn & Teller
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Incinerated a tri-tip on the backyard grill. Made mac salad, but it needed more crunch, so added one of every kind of pepper from the garden. Nothing 'hot', or even 'spicy' is ripe now - just various colors of bells. Corn on the cob from the farmer's market, a bag o'baked beans from
the little freezer, and a cucumber/tomato/sour cream salad my grandmother always made to say 'it's summer!'
Did the weekly visit to the local aquarium. There are a load of cool places to visit around here. Most have horrific prices to get through the front gate (unless business is sucking, like it is now, and deals are cut with grocery stores & fast-food chains for single visits). However, most of the fabulous places to visit also offer
some form of a 'season pass'. Most venues seem to have one in the $100 range, usually per person. But, for $105, the local aquarium includes the whole family. It's local, it's air conditioned, and, by LA-standards, the food at the cafe is great. Disneyland, at the other extreme, has a whole system of 'season passes' starting around $100 (per person).
The 2 kittens are getting bolder in how far they stray to explore. I was raised by dog people, and this is my first close interlude with kittens. At this point, I'm most impressed that, provided a cat box, the mama-cat (Gracie) trained them to use it. Now, if they'd just sift the shit & take it outside, too...
Tonight, Monday, CBS has reruns of 'King Of Queens', 'Yes, Dear', 'Raymond', 'Becker', and then '48 Hours'.
Scheduled on a fresh Dave are Julia Stiles and author Mike Daisey.
Scheduled on a fresh Craiggers are Kathy Ireland, Michael York, and comic Dan Levy.
NBC starts with a rerun 'Fear Factor', then a fresh 'Dog Eat Dog', and finally a rerun 'Crossing Jordan'.
Scheduled on a fresh Jay are Dennis Miller, Portia DeRossi, and Lamya.
If it's Monday, Conan is a rerun with scheduled guests Martin Short, Rhys Ifans, and Patty Griffin.
It's a rerun on Carson Daly (from 3/11/02), with scheduled guests Rich Eisen and Cracker.
ABC has the James Bond movie 'Dr. No'.
The WB has reruns of '7th Heaven' and 'Smallville'.
Faux has a rerun 'Boston Public', then 2 fresh leftover episodes of 'Titus'.
UPN has reruns of 'The Hughleys', 'One On One', 'The Parkers', and 'Girlfriends'.
AMC has To Sir, with Love (1966), starring
Sidney Poitier,
Judy Geeson,
Suzy Kendall, and
Lulu, who also sang the theme song.
It was directed by James Clavell, and YES, that
James Clavell. He not only wrote bestsellers like ''Tai-Pan'' and ''Shogun,''
he also started out as a screenwriter. An incredibly interesting man.
IFC has 'Paul Robeson: Tribute' in rotation today.
VH1 has William Shatner hosting One Hit Wonders : Disco Divas.
Anyone have any opinions?
Or reviews?
(See below for addresses)
Cast & Cameos
Re: Austin Powers In Goldmember
Cast:
Mike Myers (Austin Powers, Dr. Evil, Fat Bastard, and Goldmember), Heather Graham (Felicity Shagwell), Beyoncè Knowles (Foxxy Cleopatra), Michael York (Basil Exposition), Michael Caine (Nigel Powers), Mindy Sterling (Frau Farbissina), Seth Green (Scott Evil), Robert Wagner (Number 2), Verne Troyer (Mini-Me), Fred Savage (Number Three), Aaron Himelstein (Young Austin Powers), Eddie Adams (Young Basil Exposition), Jim Paddock (Headmaster), Evan Farmer (Young Number 2), Josh Zuckerman (Young Dr. Evil), Kevin Clooney (General Clark), Carrie Ann Inaba (Fook Yu), Diane Mizota (Fook Mi), Nina Kaczorowski (Goldmember's Henchwoman), Linda Kim (Geisha Secretary), and India Dupre (Belinda).
Cameos:
Britney Spears, Quincy Jones, Kevin Spacey, Gwyneth Paltrow, Danny DeVito, Katie Couric, Steven Speilberg, the Osbournes (Ozzy, Sharon, Jack and Kelly), Nathan Lane, and Tom Cruise.
Source: austin's pad :: austin powers 3
'American Heart Awards'
Larry Flynt
Larry Flynt arrives for the American Heart Association's inaugural "American Heart Awards - Paint The Town Red" event in Beverly Hills, Calif., Saturday, July 27, 2002.
Photo by Ann Johansson
Banned From Public Speaking
Homer Simpson
Homer Simpson, the benign patriarch of the best-known animated family in the world, has become the centre of a censorship dispute between Rupert Murdoch's television company, Fox, and the counter-culture comedian and writer Paul Krassner.
Dan Castellaneta, the voice of Homer on The Simpsons, performed an introduction for Krassner on a live comedy album, Irony Lives.
In Homer's voice, Castellaneta said his only problem with Krassner was that he was an atheist. He asked: "If there is no God, then who has placed a pox on me and mocks me every day?"
The album, which was due out this month, pokes fun at President Bush, the US attorney general, John Ashcroft, and the "war on terrorism". But Fox's lawyers stepped in and insisted that Homer's voice is part of their intellectual property.
After requesting seven copies of the CD they denied its use.
In a counter move, Krassner has placed the introduction on his website,
paulkrassner.com. He has now had some 250,000 hits so the ban appears to be garnering more publicity for the CD than Artemis, the company releasing the album,
would have been able to buy.
During his days as editor of The Realist, often described as the first underground magazine in the US, Krassner said he never asked for permission for anything on the grounds that he had no assets and therefore was not worth suing but
Artemis feared a possibly damaging lawsuit from Fox.
The US ninth circuit court of appeal in San Francisco ruled this week that the use of fictional characters enjoyed protection under the first amendment when it found in favour of the band, Aqua, who made humorous reference to Barbie dolls in a 1997 song.
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Homer banned from public speaking
But, wait - Michael Dare brought this to our attention in ''Disinfotainment,'' Bartcop Entertainment - Tuesday, 25 June, 2002 - over a month ago!
Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation
Cynthia Nixon
Cynthia Nixon is worried about white flight from New York City's public schools.
The "Sex And The City" actress was honored Saturday by Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation for her fight to get more government aid to the city's schools. The actress was arrested in
May while protesting school budget cuts.
The event was held at hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons' posh estate in East Hampton. Other guests included "Sex and the City" co-star Kristin Davis, broadcaster Katie Couric, actor
couple Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, designer Betsey Johnson and basketball legend Walt Fraizer. The host was actress Rosie Perez.
Cynthia Nixon
Interesting Link
Le Monde Aliéné
Welcome to Le Monde Aliéné
Commonwealth Games
Streaker
An unidentified streaker runs on the field during a women's hockey game between Engalnd and Canada at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England, Sunday July 28, 2002. England won the match 6-1.
Photo by Steve Holland
Big Dog Watch Continues - A Fun Read
Bill Clinton
Former President Clinton says the bull market of the 1990s bred corporate corruption but that President Bush's laying blame on his predecessor twists the truth.
"There was corporate malfeasance both before he took office and after," Clinton told a Washington television reporter. "The difference is I actually tried to do something about it, and their party stopped it" in Congress.
"And one of the people who stopped our attempt to stop Enron accounting was made chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission," Clinton said. "That is a fact; an indisputable fact."
For the rest, Bill Clinton
In The Kitchen With BartCop & Friends
Poster Child?
Margot Kidder
Margot Kidder, the "Superman" star who is now a 54-year-old grandmother, considers herself a "poster child for mental health."
Six years after a nationally publicized breakdown that left her wandering the streets of Los Angeles, Kidder says her "periodic bungee jumps into craziness" are a thing of the past.
"For me, the solution was finally getting away from psychiatric drugs and actually healing my body so I wouldn't have the symptoms that are called mental illness," said Kidder, who
begins appearing Tuesday at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts in "The Vagina Monologues."
Margot Kidder
Woman With An Opinion
Sandra Bernhard
Sandra Bernhard, ... in stand-up gigs in Britain, called President Bush "a dunce." "Americans are lazy," she told The Guardian. "They don't have a concept of how the world
interacts . . . It's a little scary to be in country so detached from reality and so ready to buy into the propaganda that the enemy is out there lurking, ready to attack us again."
Sandra Bernhard
Reader Contributed Link
Red Flags Weekly
Red Flags Weekly
Thanks, Jim!
Buochs, Switzerland
Lake Jump Contest
A competitor and his bicycle fly through the air during the Lake Jump Contest in Buochs, Switzerland Saturday, July 27, 2002.
Photo by Sigi Tischler
Explains AIDS
New Children's Book
A green pock-faced monster with red eyes and fangs is depicted as the HIV virus in a new children's book that seeks to explain the science of AIDS to South African children.
In the book, "Staying Alive, Fighting HIV/AIDS," colorful pictures and simple text describe how the deadly HIV virus invades the immune system and multiplies throughout the body.
By explaining the science of the virus and giving frank answers on how it is transmitted, the book's British authors and American publisher hope to teach the children of South Africa how to stay safe.
One in nine South Africans is HIV positive — the highest rate in the world.
In researching the project, author Fran Balkwill and illustrator Mic Rolph, both from London, spoke to South African children — from those living in shacks in poor townships to those attending affluent suburban
white schools — to ask them what they wanted to know about AIDS.
The book, published by the New York publisher, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, is being distributed free to 20,000 South African children.
It is aimed at children between the ages of about 11 and 17 and its backers hope to raise more money so it can be distributed to all South African children. Eventually they also hope to make versions of it available to
children in other countries where the disease has also reached epidemic proportions.
South African AIDS activists welcomed the book.
New Children's Book
BartCop TV!
The Next 'Producers'?
'Hairspray'
The buzz is building for "Hairspray," and although the $10.5 million musical is still in previews and doesn't open at the Neil Simon Theatre until Aug. 15, it's already being burbled about
as "the next `Producers,'" Broadway's hottest show. Critics won't see it until close to the opening.
Not bad for a musical with no stars — except perhaps Harvey Fierstein, who has inherited the role of full-figured Edna Turnblad, played in the film by Divine. To portray Edna's daughter, perky Tracy
Turnblad, Lion chose Marissa Jaret Winokur, who achieved minor cult status by uttering one of the biggest laugh lines in the Academy Award-winning film "American Beauty" — "You are so busted."
Out-of-town reviews in Seattle, where "Hairspray" played in June, were enthusiastic, setting the stage for chat room frenzy and growing mainstream media interest, including an upcoming segment on NBC's "Today."
For a whole lot more, 'Hairspray'
Hairspray
Snarky Gossip
Martin Lawrence
Even though Martin Lawrence jokes about his prickly past in his stand-up comedy film, "Runteldat," he won't talk about it with reporters. On Wednesday, the funnyman cursed out
Fox News Channel's Bill McCuddy and walked off in the middle of an interview. "In the movie, Lawrence does two long set-pieces about his infamous public episodes," McCuddy told
Fox News' Roger Friedman. "One was the time when he was waving a gun in traffic, and another time when he wound up in a coma. He says in the movie that he was high many times [during
his career]." When McCuddy asked Lawrence about these episodes, the comic freaked and said: "Now that the tape is running, you're asking me these kinds of things?" Lawrence called
McCuddy a [bleep]head and walked out. And when McCuddy tried to retrieve his tape of the interview, the Paramount publicist said, "It didn't go so well," and refused to hand it over.
Martin Lawrence
Working Steady
Sean Penn
Sean Penn will star in "The Assassination of Richard Nixon," a fact-based picture about a desperate salesman's attempts to make his mark on history.
The project marks the feature directing debut of Niels Mueller, co-author of Miramax's recently released coming-of-age picture "Tadpole." It is also the first production of Mexican filmmaker
Alfonso Cuaron's ("Y Tu Mama Tambien") Monsoon Entertainment, which will finance the picture. Shooting is slated for April.
Penn next stars in "Mystic River," to be directed by Clint Eastwood for Warner Bros. He then will segue to "21 Grams," to be directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu ("Amores Perros") for Focus Films.
Sean Penn
Fun Link
Stereographer.com
Stereographer.com
La Jolla Cove
Jumbo Squid
Thousands of jumbo flying squid measuring up to 2 feet long have washed ashore at a La Jolla beach, surprising scientists and swimmers.
Workers on Friday removed 12 tons of dead and dying squid stranded at La Jolla Cove.
It may have been the largest local mass stranding in nearly 100 years, said Eric Hochberg, a scientist with the Santa Barbara Natural History Museum.
Hochberg believes the quivering, tentacled mollusks were stranded while chasing a school of grunion, a fish that spawns on the sand at high tide.
The jumbo flying squid, known by their scientific name Dosidicus gigas, normally nestle in the eastern Pacific Ocean but they have been showing up on beaches from Orange County to the Mexican
Border. Scientists suspect that they are coming north with El Nino warm water currents.
Jumbo Squid
Smith, Rock & Jackson
Slick Rick
Will Smith has come to the defense of fellow rapper "Slick Rick" Walters, who could face deportation because he was convicted of attempted murder 11 years ago.
"I have know Rick for over 15 years," Smith wrote in a letter to the Immigration and Naturalization Service that was cited Saturday by the Los Angeles Times. "While I'm aware of his past problems, I've
also had the pleasure to watch him develop into a good person."
Comedian Chris Rock, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and New York state Sen. David Paterson also have lent their support, the Times reported.
Walters, 37, is a legal resident but not a U.S. citizen. He served more than five years in prison for a 1991 shooting in New York. U.S. law requires the deportation of any non-citizen who serves more than five years in a U.S. prison.
The British-born rapper was arrested by immigration officials last month in Miami aboard a cruise ship that had hired him to perform. He is in custody in Florida pending an immigration hearing.
Slick Rick
Reassesses Legacy
Evita & Argentina
Five decades after her death from cancer, thousands of Argentines filed past a black marble crypt to pay respects to their beloved "Evita," the country's most famous first lady.
Wearing lapel pins in national colors, they gathered at Buenos Aires' Recoleta cemetery on Friday to leave bouquets at the grave of Maria Eva Duarte de Peron, who died at age 33 on July 26, 1952.
"Evita represented social justice, generosity, love and dedication for the poor — all the things that none of our politicians have today," said Rafael Ton, wearing an Argentine flag embossed with Evita's
smiling face. "She's not Madonna, she's not the Hollywood film, she's not the musical. She's much more than that."
Disagreements over Evita's legacy continued for decades in a country torn between right and left, haves and have-nots.
Now, 50 years on and with books, movies, plays and a new exhibition on her life, Argentines are beginning to form a consensus about Evita.
For more, Evita & Argentina
Black Sabbath in Latin
'Sabbatum'
Some classic heavy metal tunes are making a classical comeback with a medieval makeover.
An Estonian record company has released an album of Black Sabbath songs played by a quintet specializing in music from the Middle Ages and singing in the main literary language of that era, Latin.
"If you take away the massive wall of sound from many Sabbath songs, what you have is pure 14th century music," producer Mihkel Raud claimed Friday. "Really."
The 12-track album — called "Sabbatum," Latin for "sabbath" — includes "Wheels of Confusion" ("Rotae Confusionis") and "War Pigs" ("Verres Militares") in slow, minimalist versions that wouldn't seem out of place in the Sistine Chapel.
'Sabbatum'
www.sabbatum.com
But, then this was old news around here -
Bartcop Entertainment - Friday, 22 March, 2002
Then, Baron Dave Romm reviewed it -
Bartcop Entertainment - Tuesday, 9 April, 2002
And in an unintended display of synchronicity, it was rerun last Monday while Baron Dave was on a well-deserved vacation.
In Memory
Dolores Olmedo
Dolores Olmedo, who first posed nude for Diego Rivera at age 12 and became one of the greatest patrons of the Mexican muralist and his surrealist wife Frida Kahlo, has died, a spokeswoman at Olmedo's museum said on Sunday.
She was 93 and died of a heart attack late Saturday.
Before his death in 1957, Rivera made Olmedo the trustee of his works and personal belongings and, at the behest of the artist himself -- penniless at the time -- Olmedo bought 25 paintings by Kahlo from a private collector.
She converted part of her sprawling estate home in Xochimilco on Mexico City's southern edge into a museum that holds 137 works by Rivera and the 25 Kahlo pieces.
"I always called him maestro (master) and he always called me linda (pretty one)," Olmedo said of Rivera in an interview with Reuters last year.
Olmedo first met Rivera when she accompanied her mother, a schoolteacher, to the Secretary of Education building in Mexico City's city center, where Rivera was working on a mural.
Rivera asked her mother's permission to do a portrait of the young girl, but ended sketching a nude study of her. Olmedo says her mother never knew about the sketch, which now hangs at her museum next to a Kahlo nude by Rivera.
Olmedo's powerful personality and influence over a large part of Rivera's legacy alienated a number of Mexican art historians and scholars, some of whom accused her of marginalizing Kahlo's talent out of jealousy because it was Kahlo whom Rivera married.
Nevertheless, she lent works by Rivera and Kahlo to exhibits from Houston to Helsinki and, most recently, she was influential in granting reproduction rights to Hollywood for a movie about Kahlo.
In the interview Olmedo brushed off talk of her rivalry with Kahlo, although she acknowledged she had had differences with the artist, who died in 1954.
"I did not get along with Frida. Well, she liked women and I liked men, and I was not a communist," said Olmedo, her hair slicked back over delicate porcelain-like features. "But Frida is a good artist and she suffered a lot."
Kahlo was impaled with an iron bar in a trolley car accident at 18, which led to a life filled with physical suffering until her death at 47.
A communist who experimented with lesbianism, Kahlo poured out her personal anguish in her painting.
Dolores Olmedo
Can Live Out Of Water
Snakehead Fish
Snakehead fish move along the ground using their fins at a fish farm in Singapore, July 27, 2002. Popular in parts of Asia for its medicinal benefits, the aggressive fish -- which has a
voracious appetite and can live out of water for days -- has become a threat in parts of the United States, where its unintended introduction has led to the destruction of local fish.
Photo by Jonathan Searle
'The Osbournes'
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 3
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 2
'The Osbournes' ~ Page 1
